Such was their friendship that Congressman Ballenger, age 74, hosted President Chavez at a backyard barbeque in Hickory, North Carolina, in the spring of 2001. The cookout in Ballenger's backyard came much to the astonishment of his neighbors, whom he invited over the fence to meet the burly Venezuelan so often caricatured as a "foreign dictator."
"His rhetoric is worse than his actions," Congressman Ballenger once said of the man whose country was the 4th leading supplier of oil to the US. I liked the fact that a conservative Republican lawmaker and the head of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela had found a way to talk together, eat together, and accentuate what they had in common. Once acquainted, they found they had little desire to demonize each other.
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The above quotations are from Against the Tide How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President by Lincoln Chafee. Click here for other excerpts from Against the Tide How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President by Lincoln Chafee. Click here for other excerpts by Cass Ballenger. Click here for other excerpts by other Governors.
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